17-12-2012, 05:59 PM
Force.com Workbook
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About the Force.com Workbook
The Force.com Workbook shows you how to create an application (or “app”) in a series of tutorials. While you can use the
Force.com platform to build virtually any kind of app, most apps share certain characteristics such as:
• A database to model the information in the app
• Business logic and workflow to carry out particular tasks under certain conditions
• A user interface to expose data and functionality to those logged in to your app
• A public website to show data and functionality on the Web
The tutorials are centered around building a very simple warehouse management system. You'll start developing the app from
the bottom up; that is, you'll first build a database model for keeping track of merchandise. You'll continue by adding business
logic: validation rules to ensure that there is enough stock, workflow to update inventory when something is sold, approvals
to send email notifications for large invoice values, and trigger logic to update the prices in open invoices. Once the database
and business logic are complete, you'll create a user interface to display a product inventory to staff, a public website to display
a product catalog, and then the start of a simple store front.
Each of the tutorials builds on the previous tutorial to advance the app's development and simultaneously showcase a particular
feature of the platform. It may sound like a lot, but it's all quite easy—as you'll soon see.
Intended Audience
This workbook is intended for developers new to the Force.com platform, and Salesforce admins who want to delve more
deeply into app development using coding. If you're an admin just getting started with Force.com, see the Force.com Platform
Fundamentals for point-and-click app development.
Tutorial #1: Creating a Warehouse App
At the heart of this app is what you want to sell: merchandise. So you'll begin by creating a data object that keeps track of all
the elements of a particular merchandise item, such as its name, description, price, and so on. On the Force.com platform,
these data objects are called custom objects. If you are familiar with databases, you can think of them as a table.
An object comes with standard fields, and screens that allow you to list, view and edit information about the object. But you
can also add your own fields to track or list just about anything you can think of. When you complete this tutorial, you will
have a working app with its own menu, a tab, and a custom object that tracks the name, description, and price of all your
merchandise, as well as screens that allow you to view and edit all of this information.